The Value of Disaster Recovery – Contrans Group

A flexible and affordable business continuity plan, particularly one that addresses system redundancy and accessibility, while ensuring that the worst case scenario is looked after… is a an investment that a business takes to ensure a peace of mind and credibility. Beyond being looked at as worst-case scenario plan, or “the likelihood of this happening is slim to none”, a business can affirm its dedication to excellent service, above all to its customers, through a well-constructed disaster recovery solution.

Working with Rocket Software, Able-One implemented the iCluster replication software on Contrans’ production and high availability servers. Contrans is one of the largest freight transportation companies in Canada, with approximately 1,500 power units and 2,600 trailers under its management. The implemented software replicates transactions in real time so that data is consistent on both servers. In the event of a disaster, the backup server can be used for production with minimal loss of data. It can also be used to provide ongoing operations during periods of planned outage. Shortly after the disaster recovery solution was put in place for their production AS/400, Contrans Group Inc. experienced a complete loss of their main computer room through a water leak.

After implementing their Disaster Recovery/High Availability (DR/HA) solution Contrans was able to switch users to their backup system and get everything up and running within a couple of hours, with only minimal data loss. Darren Levine, Contrans’ IT Director said: “This was about as massive an impact to an IT infrastructure as you can have. But our customers didn’t even realize we’d had an outage”.

During this project Able-One managed two cutovers: they installed the new production server in Contrans’ newly built computer room, and restored the backup server, including rolling over all applications and migrating data. With the Rocket iCluster software on production and DR/HA servers, Contrans can now rely on the availability of their data and applications. From their experience, they know their data is in sync and users can be moved to their backup system with minimal business disruption.

Darren adds, “This was our first project with Able-One: they lived up to our expectations and I would absolutely recommend them. They’re very responsive and agile, and they understand what we were trying to accomplish.”

Find out how exactly Able-One Systems helped Contrans avoid disaster. Download the full story here